I hate and it’s drive me crazy when we talk about X360:

1) XNA – free tool but it’s not available in Poland! No Xbox Live…

2) Boku/Kodu – I made Polish translation for Kodu and I show it on several public meetings/conferences. I have 2 schools really interested in this language. One of them wrote email to Microsoft Poland for support. No Xbox Live…

4) X360 Prize - not too expensive, but… PS3 has Polish “PS3 live – PSN with shop and free games and live gaming”, and that’s why PS3 has in Poland 52% of market share.

This situation is not new. I try to spoke to Microsoft in Poland, in UK and in USA. I try to spoke with XNA team, with Entertainment Department in Microsoft and with Steve Ballmer. Without response with any good information (one response about that there is no Xbox Live in Poland :)).

Steve Ballmer told me to write him email (I meet him in Warsaw in MVP meeting). He never ever answer… so I wrote my last email as XNA MVP:

This is my third email… Probably third email to You (Steve Ballmer) without any response (“Give me email I will respond”…).

Problems:

Our problems without Xbox Live & Games for Windows Live, are still this same:

1) All XNA programmers in Poland using accounts from USA and UK. There is no other way! We CAN’T use polish account for game development. This is also big problem for me. I have a lot of questions form Polish students, game developers after my XNA/Silverlight presentations about this. Every one asking about how to avoid warranty problems (we are using different account then place of purchase), problems with law, problems with XNA game distribution etc.

2) No one in Poland can use Xbox Live futures.

Yours problems:

1) Content distribution (I know – law etc. BUT SONY doesn’t have this problem! Polish Sony dashboard has full support for all live Europe content…).

2) Translation – There is no problem for Xbox Dashboard is full translated… Content – leave it in English!

3) Lawsuit – I’m still thinking - that will happen soon or later. It is possible that someone from Poland (and other countries) can sue you about delivering not fully functional hardware.

Possible solutions:

1) Content distribution – turn it off for us. We need on line gamming, XNA games, XNA programming – this is most important for us. Content? It is nice to have it but not so important!

2) Translation – leave content in English – we are using it in English more than 2 years so this is no big problem now.

What I expect?

Simple solution for XNA programming and on line gamming using polish accounts. Just allow us to use these accounts and pay for XNA development…

Since the launch of the Xbox 360 in 2006, the Poland Xbox 360 community has developed a strong presence on the Xbox Live service. There are already several thousand local Xbox Live users, including many people who imported their Xbox 360s before the local launch.

Sadly, the fact that Xbox Live is not officially supported for local users means that most of us have needed to resort to workarounds such as registering as Xbox Live users in countries such as the US and UK with the apparent approval of Microsoft Poland.

Many users are forced to obtain memberships and gamerpoint cards via online auctions such as ebay.pl or international sites, usually paying a premium price for them.

We, the undersigned, therefore appeal to Microsoft to:

*Issue an official statement that clarifies the status of the Xbox Live launch for Poland and put all the rumours currently circulating to rest;

*Set up local billing facilities and pricing models as soon as possible to encourage the growth of the local Xbox 360 community; and

*Allow existing Polish users registered in other countries to easily migrate their profiles from other countries to the local Xbox Live service.

We believe that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 brand will benefit as much as the Xbox 360 community if these steps are taken. The Xbox Live service is a major competitive differentiator for the Xbox 360 and one of the console’s most important features, and we would love to play games like Halo 3 and Gears of War on Xbox Live.

Polish customers deserve the same level of service and support as gamers in the rest of the world, especially given the loyalty that has been exhibited by the Polish community since the local launch of the Xbox 360 platform.

Sincerely,

THE POLISH XBOX 360 COMMUNITY

Sincerely,”

I think that this situation is getting to be crazy. For example new price for Red Xbox 360 in Poland is 1499 PLN (this is 326 Euro) and will contain:

Red/Black Xbox 360

Resident Evil 5

… THAT’S ALL but wait in UK, USA and other countries there is also: Super Street Fighter II, Turbo HD Remix, and special skin for Xbox dashboard… So why there is no such a thing in Poland? Because of no Xbox Live in Poland!